Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I spoke for a long time, and to your credit, you listened to every word. Then, Martín, I had nothing left to tell you, nothing that you didn’t already know. I wish I could say that was the end of that, but you know as well as I what happened next. The most I can do now is recount it for you. Andrés wouldn’t have minded anymore, I think, if I filled in the gaps of your memory.

On our last evening in Toledo, Andrés slept well into the night, plagued with the occasional shiver under the coverlets. I expected you to doze away by his side soon enough, especially after my tale. But your fingers continued to run across my head. I suppose that was your way of saying “thank you.” And I did not fail to catch the way you looked at Andrés, a new glint of- for lack of better word- heartbreak in your gaze.

“Are you thirsty?” you asked me.

I nodded, for my throat was too dry to do anything besides mewl. You left to tend the fire. Then you returned with a tin of water. As I lapped away at it, you again pressed your hand to Andrés’ brow.

You frowned. “His fever hasn’t gone down.”

“You can’t expect it to break so fast,” I said, “he’ll wake when he does.”

“No.” You narrowed your eyes at the bandages, cursing under your breath. “Something’s wrong.”

I gulped in the remnants of water. When I lifted my chin, you were on your way to the door, shrugging into the coat around your shoulders.

“Martín- where are you-”

“I’m going to the apothecary- saw one on the way here. Might be a bit of a walk,” you told me, “but his wounds are infected.”

You didn’t wait to hear my reply. The door locked behind you and I was left holding my tongue. You were as stubborn as Andrés. I knew the state of his injuries had nothing to do with infection, nor did the fever. It was something much worse, and I had a feeling you’d always known-- the demons of Santa Catalina were working their way through his veins. But you’d rather believe what you said. After all, a physical ailment could be cured. 

I could not say the same for a dying soul. 

After you’d gone, I waited by Andrés in your place, eyes drifting to the window every so often. You’d drawn the curtains, but I could still make out the shape of light rain. This time, you remembered to take the umbrella. And the thunder had grown to a distant rumble. Between the sound of rain and fire, I too nodded away, lost in the beats of Andrés’ breaths.

When I next stirred, it was not to a peaceful scene. I heard the noise first, loud angry cries from beyond our walls. Voices shouting in the rain, too chaotic to form a single phrase. I shook myself awake, and stretched my paws forward.

Andrés was gone. In disbelief, I touched the pillow. It was still warm, so he couldn’t have left for long. Maybe I should have panicked, but I was more livid than anything else; there was no doubt in my mind that the crowd outside had come for him, and I could not for the life of me understand why Andrés thought he was in any state to face them.

I ran to the window and pushed the curtains aside. When I managed to peek out the glass, my theory was confirmed. I saw blobs in the dark, illuminated by blocks of light- that I could only assume were lanterns- and in the center of those blobs, I made out two shapes. At first, I’d thought it was you and Andrés.

I dashed away then, out the open door, and down the halls. Whatever had happened, Andrés had left in a hurry. He would have shut the door otherwise. 

Then, in a blur, I reached the inn’s front doors. And soon, I was hissing at the rain upon my fur. Paw on stone, I made way to the street outside, where the commotion was taking place. And I realized I was wrong-

It wasn’t the alchemist at all. It was the professor. Sergio was standing between Andrés and another man, a stocky fellow shouting in his face. For his part, Andrés looked at the crowd- twenty or so men and women, I counted- with bored fatigue, again in his black coat. Or perhaps he was on the verge of passing out.

“Listen to me,” Sergio said, trying to make himself heard in the rain, “what happened was unfortunate, but it was-”

“What!?” that man cried, “necessary? Who gave you the right to call this bastard here? What are you, a god!?”

He flung his lantern down, the glass smashing by Sergio’s feet. Then grabbing the professor’s lapels, he tried to shove Sergio aside. But Sergio would not budge, and angrier still, the man raised a fist. 

Andrés spoke then. From behind, he pulled Sergio back. Stepping in front, he said, “Señor Román, is it? You still haven’t told us what you want. And my time is too precious to waste on these shenanigans, understand?”

“Andrés,” Sergio whispered, but his brother merely smiled, a grave smirk.

“You son of a bitch,” Román growled, “my daughter is dead because of you.”

Only then did I notice his puffed eyes. The tears, I’d mistaken for rain.

“I told you,” Sergio said, “her death was an accident-”

“Did I ask you!?” Román gestured at the crowd. “You know what we want? Why we’re here!? We want retribution, and we want the both of you out of town!”

I heard shouts of agreement. 

“I’ll be away soon enough,” Andrés told him, “but retribution, you see, plagued your daughter’s school in the first place. I doubt you can afford to repeat such a feat.”

Andrés grinned then, nearly a grimace as he looked Román in the eye. “You ought to thank the professor for nipping this problem in the bud before it spread to you. But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad a thing.”

Román gulped. Then he snarled, “I’ll kill you!”

There was a shout in front of me. I saw Román whip his arm across the necromancer’s face. Andrés fell back, landing on his side with a new line of blood bursting from the nose. He coughed, gagging red, while Sergio struggled to help him up. 

Román prepared to strike again, just as I lunged towards him. And I stopped in my tracks when he cried out.

Román had fallen, slammed into a puddle by arms behind his back. A boot dug into his shoulder. 

“Fuck!” he cried, “who-”

He twisted around to look his assailant in the eye. It was you. And oh, Martín, how could I describe your face then? Even a tempest would have balked at the rage in your features, etched into every line.

You glanced at Andrés, his lip split, the rest of him too weak to rise. When you looked back at Román, I knew you meant to kill. 

When Román tried to wriggle from your grip, you dragged him up and smashed him back down. His companions should have tried to stop you, but I think they were afraid- who would have dared, when you had that look in your eyes?

“I’m someone you don’t want to fuck with,” you said harshly, a near hiss as you wrapped your fist in the collar of his shirt. 

Then you punched him. He fell, spitting, and you struck him again, his nose cracking against your knuckles. He cursed, trying to crawl off, but you’d grabbed him once more, and twisting your fingers into his hair, you raised your bloodied fist for another blow.

“Señor Román, look up.”

You turned to the sound of Andrés’ voice, still clutching Román’s abused scalp. Andrés was back on his feet, propped up by Sergio’s hands against his chest and back. Andrés pushed himself away, and stepping out, tilted his head skyward.

“Is this the retribution you wanted?” he said with another grin, flashing teeth stained with blood.

The rain bled down, and on his knees, Román watched, stupefied by the crimson now pouring upon his head. You released him. Copper tainted air, all else bleeding red. And instinctively, I ran to hide by Andrés’ leg. 

“What did you do?” Román demanded, his battered face twisting in horror. 

“It won’t let up until I leave. Think of it as a farewell present, Señor.” Andrés shut his eyes, as if listening to the rhythm of rain, a song he was all too familiar with. “An apologia for your sorrows, if you will.”

Most of the crowd had dispersed by then, leaving Román kneeling in the street. On a better day, I’m sure Andrés would have stopped to gloat. Perhaps he’d pet Román on the face and laugh at the terror in his eyes. But in that moment, I think Andrés meant what he said: the red rains served as an apologia for many things- most of them out of the necromancer’s control- and whether or not men like Román understood, Andrés no longer cared.

“Come, Tatiana,” he mumbled, and humming to himself, turned away.

When he stumbled, Sergio reached out. But you intercepted just before he touched his brothers’ arm. Squeezing yourself between them, you hoisted Andrés’ arm around your shoulder, and casting Sergio an icy glare, said, “You’ve done enough.”

Before the professor could respond, Andrés- his eyes yet opened- rubbed the side of Sergio’s jaw. “Good night, professor.”

Then wrapping a hand around Andrés’ waist, you led him back into the inn. I kept close behind, and when I saw Sergio try to follow, I looked to him and shook my head. Not now, I tried to tell him, and silently, Sergio obeyed. As I entered behind your steps, I took one last look at Sergio-- his eyes were hidden behind the glint of wet spectacles. 

~~o~~

“Let’s leave tonight,” you told Andrés as we stumbled up the spiral stairs, all three dripping red, “the rain’s our cue, eh?”

He staggered forward. “Martín-”

“Here,” you said, easing him onto the next step, and when his back pressed against the railing, you stooped in front of him. “Let’s sit down.”

“You shouldn’t have intervened,” Andrés muttered through hooded eyes, “it would have rained anyway.”

You snorted. “If you’re worried if his skull hurt my knuckles, don’t. It felt good.”

I settled next to Andrés, and I did not miss the way his mouth almost twitched into a grin.

“What was that all about anyway?” you asked, checking the inside of your coat.

“My brother came to fulfill his promise tonight.”

“Our pay? Then he’s good for something, at least.”

Andrés ran the back of his wrist across his mouth, smearing the blood from his nose into a patch of scarlet above his lips, dark against the chalk of his skin. “Román accosted him with that idiotic crowd. I can’t fault the bastard for his grief, but stupidity is a blinding ailment.”

You shrugged. “So nothing we haven’t seen before.”

You said it easily enough, as if it was another joke on your tongue, but I caught the fury in your gaze, every part of you still simmering at Román.

“And let me guess, you stepped out to save little brother?” you said dryly, reaching for his wrist.

“I’m not that noble,” Andrés answered, “Román wanted me. He only used the professor to find me.”

“Because Santa Catalina blamed you for the girl’s death, which if I remember correctly, you told your brother to encourage. Shit, Andrés, when were you such a martyr?”

And there, Martín, I sensed your anger. No doubt, Andrés did as well.

“I never was,” he told you, forcing a chuckle from his throat, “you overestimate me, my friend.”

You smiled, coldly, perhaps reminiscing about my tale. It must have taken a tremendous amount of control not to tell him all you knew. But you managed, and resisting, you rolled up his sleeve.

“Let me see,” you said, and seeing the pink gauze, added, “fuck- your wounds reopened.”

You were right. The gauze of his left forearm was seeping red, I suspect, because of his fall in the street. 

Andrés smacked your hands away then, and pulling his arm back to himself, said, “Leave it, Martín. I’ll handle it myself.”

“Handle it yourself? Like how you handled yourself out there? If it wasn’t for me, you’d be bleeding to death already.”

Andrés returned your glare, something sharp in his hardened eyes. “Is that so? Need I remind you who saved your life in Palermo?”

“I never asked you to,” you said lowly, leveling with him. “And I don’t really see the correlation here.”

“Here’s the correlation. I saved you because I was bored. You saved me because you have some delusion about our relationship.”

He clicked his teeth, cocking his head at you as if you were slow. “You’re a man of logic, Martín- does that make sense to you?”

You grinned, disbelief in each curve of your lips. “And pray tell, what are my delusions? You think I do all this, that I followed you across the continent because I want what, to fuck you?”

“And why else? You like me too much, and you know it, Martín.” He chuckled. “It’s pitiful, really, the lengths you’d go for me.”

You were quivering with rage, that grin dropping into a harsh scowl, harsher than I’d ever seen. “And if you pity me so much, why ask me to come with you then? I’m not fucking stupid, Andrés. You asked me to be your partner-”

“What of it?”

“Now you’re acting like I'm the dirt beneath your shoe, I don’t buy it-”

“You think I don’t love you, Martín? Because I did. But I did because I was bored! What part do you not understand?” Andrés threw his head back and chortled. “I wanted a change of pace, a project to pass the time. And now I’m bored again- you were interesting for a while, Martín, but you’ve lost your flavor.”

You grabbed his shoulders, tight, and seething, said, “What the fuck are you doing? I won’t fall for it, you son of a bitch-”

“Did you think I wanted a partner? That I was happy sharing my pay?” He grit his teeth. “With a brute who doesn’t know his boundaries?”

He tore into you, relentless, and for a moment, I think, as you watched his burning gaze, you wondered if you should believe him. For a moment, he was so full of vitriol and anger that you questioned if it had all been an act for a start. And that moment was all he needed to deliver his final blow:

“You’re a dog to me, Berrote, nothing but a stray I picked up on a whim. So don’t flatter yourself- you were never anything more to me.”

You kept your hands on his shoulders, nails digging into fabric as you glowered, rage coursing through every vein and nerve. You blanched, lips pursing and nose flaring. You gulped, forcing something hard down the tunnel of your throat. 

“Then find yourself another dog,” you said in a whispered hiss, “fuck.”

And soaking in your trembles, you let go, sliding past him as you returned to your feet. From your coat, you pulled out two bottles of dark glass. You slammed them down beside him.

“Goodbye,” you spat.

Then you turned without another glance, the outline of your back burning itself into his gaze. And head held high, you marched down the stairs. I heard the clatter of your boots fade into the night, and if you wept, neither of us could see.

Did you wonder why I said nothing when Andrés attacked you? No, Martín, it wasn’t because I agreed. It was because I knew he was lying from the very first word. 

I nuzzled Andrés in the thigh. When he looked at me, it was through damp eyes. 

“He bought medicine for you,” I said, “that’s what the bottles are.”

When he said nothing, I asked, “Did you have to be so cruel?”

He traced his bleeding arm. “I don’t know.”

“Andrés, why?”

And quietly, he replied, “I’m running out of time. I know I am. ”

Slowly, he lifted that arm, and with the opposite hand, unfurled its gauze before my eyes. I gaped when the last bandage fell away. The broken stitches were smeared with blood, but there was something else as well, a jagged coil of rotting grey snaking around his arm, as if burning the skin with soot.  

I’m dying, he said. 

We always knew he was dying, but the reality of it had seemed so far away, a dot in the horizon. It seemed to me that he was always just ahead of that deadline, just far enough to escape its reach. And when the time came, it would be tomorrow. Always tomorrow. 

But tomorrow had finally become today. There would be no tomorrow for him, not this time. And the proof was printed upon his arm.

“This happened,” I said, “all because of Santa Catalina? What else did you hide from-” I almost said your name. “-Sergio?”

“The ones that attached themselves to Alison Parker, they weren’t our friends.” With his good hand, he picked up one of the bottles left behind. “Not the ones that live alongside me. They didn’t want any part of me. Deemed my soul too slim.”

He unscrewed the cap, the bottle shaking in his palms, and if not for my quick paw, the contents would have spilled out. 

“In that chapel, the shadows wanted him instead. They would only leave the girl on this condition.”

He chuckled, a bitter shake within. “But I’m too selfish. Any part of me, Tatiana, I could give them. Not him.”

I didn’t need to ask if he meant you or Sergio. In his mind’s eye, Sergio was a separate entity, a whole man of his own. You, however, he considered a part of himself, etched into him like moon to dusk. Just as you thought him a part of you. Two broken pieces of the same jigsaw. 

And you, Martín, he could not give up. Not even if he wanted to. 

“So they asked for the next best thing- my time with him.” He poured the bottle over his cuts, wincing as clear liquid burned his skin. “And here we were at odds; I’d already promised myself to our- friends- you see, and they had no intention of fighting for scraps.”

“Andrés,” I hissed, digging my claws into the side of his shirt, “what stupid thing did your tiny brain do?”

Undisturbed by my grip, he set the bottle down, knuckles trembling. “I compromised. This body, I sold to them. ‘Devour it,’ I said, and ‘we shall,’ they answered. They won’t touch the spirit. Our friends will keep their claim on this dreary soul of mine.”

I scratched him then, across the knee, tearing a bit of fabric along. It was reflex, I reflect with some guilt. But in the moment, I didn’t care. I was ten years old again and hearing him speak of dealing with the shadows for the first time. I should have torn the book to pieces that night. Then we would not be here now. 

And I would not have to hear him say those words.

“Gatita!” he laughed, sounding much like an airy sob, “why so angry? When I die, you’ll survive-”

“What makes you say that!?”

“It’s Naranjita’s body you inhabit. And we’ve taken quite good care of her, haven’t we?”

“Shut up, Andrés!” I screeched, “it’s not about that! It’s about you- Martín was right, you won’t be satisfied until you’re chopped into little bloody pieces, won’t you!?”

“Tranquila-”

“I know you,” I told him, voice cracking into Naranjita’s yowl, near unintelligible as my blood boiled, “you’re not doing this for Alison Parker. You don’t give a shit about her or those young women-”

Perhaps that was true. Or perhaps it was something I needed to believe. 

“Tatiana-”

“You don’t care about anyone but yourself!”

And I needed to believe this. I needed him to believe this. Andrés was a selfish man, but in the end, not nearly selfish enough. Perhaps I was too selfish as well, or perhaps Naranjita had attached herself too much to Andrés by then. All I knew was this: I could not watch him damn himself into oblivion again.

“So why!?” I said, “why why why!?”

Naranjita could not cry, not unless her eyes were stained with dust and blood. I felt my chest sob, felt the wretched spasms of a weeping face. But no tears came, no matter how much I wished to squeeze them out.

“Tatiana,” he said again, rubbing his fingers beneath my chin. “I’m sorry.”

“Andrés-”

“Shhhh.” He smiled, eyes hazy. “You’re right. I am a fool. I am a son of a bitch. But I’m a bastard who doesn’t go back on my word- I promised Sergio I would take care of this.”

So he did. He knew this was how it would end for him. Even at the library, as Andrés listened to Sergio speak, he knew what the task would require. Perhaps even before Toledo. 

“You didn’t come here for the money,” I said, my rage quelled, replaced with a sharp realization. “You knew Sergio was the professor. You knew all along.”

He’d been ready to die for his brother once. And he was going to do it again.

“Only an inkling.” He tickled my jaw, knuckles moving back and forth along my cheeks. “I just hadn’t known how bad the situation was.”

He was not referring to Santa Catalina, I realized with another pang of dread.

“I made a mistake all those years ago,” he said, the blood on his face having dried to the color of mud, “so it’s only fair I fix it. Sergio shouldn’t have to pay the price.”

I leaned into his touch. “Neither should you.”

“I’m not paying a price.” His thumb brushed my whiskers. “I’m merely putting an end to what I started: closing the book. You have no need to grieve, gatita.”

Don’t call me that, I wished to say, but the words turned to ash on my tongue. Instead, I swallowed the lump in my throat. I looked at his smile again, searing his face into my mind’s eye. Call it premonition, or a cat’s instinct, but I knew this was the last time I would see Andrés whole, in flesh, if not spirit.

When I asked him who would tend his wounds for the night, he laughed again and said he’d do it himself. As he always had. 

Then tomorrow, he’d said, we would go home.

We hadn’t set foot in that village for decades. He’d never even mentioned it in all that time. It had not been his home then, and it certainly was not now. I had certainly stopped calling it home the moment we left. 

Now we would return, and my gut told me that he would not leave again. 

~~o~~

You never returned for your belongings. I did wonder how you spent that night, Martín. Maybe at a tavern, drinking and fucking until you convinced yourself you’d forgotten Andrés. Angrier at yourself for leaving than at him for those lies.

Regardless, Andrés packed our things and delivered on the swift exit he promised. I doubt Toledo could have withstood more of the red rain. When Andrés stepped out of the inn, I glanced down from his shoulder. He was up to his ankles in blood, the streets flooded with no small amount of red.

At his brother’s request, Sergio had prepared a carriage. It sat waiting for us, no driver in sight, likely because no one was willing to drive the necromancer about.

After he slipped me inside, Andrés was ready to take the driver’s seat despite my insistence that he not overestimate his skills with the rein. Until another set of hands grabbed the reins first.

“I’m coming with you,” Sergio told him, protected from the rain by the hood of his cloak, “where do you need to go?”

“Do you take joy in meddling with my affairs?” Andrés grumbled. “I can drive this myself, professor. Thank you.”

“You’re in no condition to.” Sergio bumped his spectacles up. “I know about the severity of your injuries. Martín informed me.”

At the mention of your name, Andrés- in spite of himself, I know- looked past Sergio. But you were nowhere to be seen.

“Martín and I are no longer partners,” Andrés said darkly. Then to the professor, he added, “and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll want to break ties with me as well.”

Sergio shook his head. “I’m coming, whether you like it or not. If it’s my fault you’re in this state, this is the least I can do.”

“It’s not your fault, I assure you. So leave me in peace.”

Andrés tried to grab the reins again, but Sergio held tight. 

“Where do you need to go?” the professor asked once more, and his grave tone was enough to tell Andrés that there would be no more room for argument.

For a moment, Andrés held his breath, then relenting, said, “Home.”

Sergio stood, stiff for a second or two, before he replied, “Our home?”

Andrés nodded. “That is, if you still remember the way, professor.”

Sergio’s voice hardened next. “I do.”

Andrés muttered a quick, “Good,” before climbing into the back with me. He drew the curtains so Sergio could not glance at us from the front, and then promptly collapsed against the seat. I would have cried his name if his hand hadn’t covered my mouth in time.

He shook his head, and when the wheels began their trudge through crimson water, Andrés sat up. He looked worse to me than he did the night before, little color left in his greying cheeks and something dull about his hair. It made the bruise on his lip appear an inky stain.

And when the carriage next swerved, our horse clopping along wet streets, I saw Andrés press a palm to his mouth. It came away dusted with red.

“How’s the damage now?” I asked him, keeping my tone low enough to avoid Sergio’s ears.

Andrés dabbed away the blood on his chin. Then he pulled apart his coat, and almost drunkenly, undid the buttons of his shirt. I leaned forward, resting my chin upon his knee. Furrows of soot colored his chest and waist, clinging to him like aged burns.

“Fast,” he said through a forced grin, “so it’s best that I work fast, no?”

I thought of you then, Martín. Long after Andrés buttoned his shirt back up and the rain faded to a light shower, you lingered on my mind. I knew you did on his as well, but Andrés was too ill to do anything save sleep, head lolling over his shoulder. He woke up a few times, mostly to remark on scenery. 

But the sight of trees behind glass was all the same to me. I had grown sick of landscapes through our years. I imagine it wouldn’t matter to you.

Had your position been reversed with Andrés, I’m sure you would have done the same. I wanted to blame you, and I’m sure a part of me did. It’s as I said-- perhaps without you, Andrés would never have made that second deal. Or perhaps he would have anyway- for Sergio, if not you. It was inevitable then, that he would meet his end this way.

What I want to say is this, Martín-- I was wrong about you.

You didn’t lure in Andrés the same way those shadows once did. You lured him towards you in the same manner as the ceilings of our childhood church. You were not a beam of light in the dark, but rather a drop of rain in the drought. And he would have gladly drowned in you, as you would have in him.

For all your arrogance, your brashness, your cruelty, your temper, I could not fault you this: you loved him and asked for nothing in return. 

I see that now. As did he.

~~o~~

In my mind, the village was exactly as I remembered-- little houses the color of clay, plazas of cobbled stone, and just beyond, a cemetery lost in a sea of low grass, hidden by trees and the shadow of San Martín’s church. But that was not quite how it was; the bright colors I recalled- sunshine and rain and apples in my hands- remained trapped on the canvas of my memory. Like the faded colors of San Martín’s sculptures, in need of a hand to restore their paint. 

The colors I saw then, were dulled by time and pain, clearest in the sight of chipped wood and mossy bricks. Everything appeared smaller, maybe because they had always been small. As Sergio guided the carriage on, I felt a vague relief- or disappointment- that the scents and sounds of my childhood did not immediately return. It was for the best; if I’d remembered the feeling of my curls or fingers around my laces, I would have remembered my last night here as well. I would have remembered Andrés stealing my corpse and all that followed.

And that, I did not.

So for this comfort alone, I was grateful for the red rain storming through. When we passed the church- as grandiose and beautiful as it had always been- it looked no different than the last time it was touched by skyward blood. A weeping saint standing tall. 

I would later learn that its walls were forever stained from the rain of decades prior, a remnant of the boy they could not erase. He was only a boy, younger than the girls of Santa Catalina, too eager to please and too desperate for love. And the shadows had pretended to be his friends. They fed into a child who blindly believed his fate could change, like the stories he used to read me from his room. 

He’d forgotten that only heroes triumphed in the end. And they had called him the villain from the very start. Then, it was inevitable that the crimson rain brought with it whispers of “Andrés is back.”

~~o~~

Andrés had asked me if I wished to see my uncle’s home. I declined. There were more pressing matters at hand, and I had no desire to revisit the house where I died, not without recalling the sensation of my neck snapping in half. And to be frank, I wasn’t confident if I even remembered where the house was.

When we reached Marquina’s home, Sergio untied the horse. As he led it away to rest, I heard Andrés mutter, “They’re everywhere.”

“What?”

In thought, he nibbled at a finger in the corner of his mouth. “The shadows. They kept to themselves once, but I see that they’ve expanded their territory.”

He chuckled. “I can sense them in the cracks of the ground, in the shade of roofs, perhaps hiding in the village hearths as we speak.”

I hopped onto his lap, stretching my limbs. “Do you think your brother unleashed them?”

“That’s an interesting word, gatita. They were already free creatures. But demons, as you know, operate under a specific set of rules- they can’t go wherever they please, not without attaching themselves to a vessel first.”

“Like Alison Parker.” And you, I almost said.

“Exactly. Though sometimes it’s more subtle than that, as you and I know.” His next laugh was dry. “They’re interested in Sergio and they’ve followed him through every corner he called them to.”

“You should tell him,” I said, “there’s no point in hiding it. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

He glanced at the bandage on his wrist. “He’ll figure it out. You said so yourself… but he’s not to blame here.”

“Then who-”

“I am. The shadows latched onto me first, and I allowed them, if you remember, with no resistance.”

I had been there at the cemetery that night, as we remember. I would hardly call what I saw ‘no resistance.’ But Andrés did not know. I allowed him to preserve this last shred of dignity. I didn’t tell him.

“I provided the coals and Sergio found the fire,” he said, moving to open the door, “I freed them, not him. So we share the guilt.”

The carriage opened, and sticking a palm out, Andrés felt for red drizzle. “But my responsibility is greater than his, at least this time.”

If you had been with us, what would you have said, Martín? I can no longer predict you.

Andrés stepped out of the carriage when he saw Sergio approach. Then to me, he held out his arms. I jumped into them, careful to hoist myself onto his shoulder as quickly as I could. In front, Sergio stumbled, his lenses slick with rainwater. Andrés grabbed him by the crook of his arm.

They stood together for a moment, as if afraid to speak, before Andrés let go. And again, he walked past Sergio as if nothing had happened at all. That was the extent of the attention I paid to their conflict, for my attention was drawn to the state of the Marquina house. 

The groundskeeper’s home had always been unassuming in my memory, a house like any other and little different from my uncle’s home. The tree that Andrés had once been so fond of had grown in the years past. It towered over the roof now, casting a great shadow that drowned out any light from the sky.

But it was the house itself that filled me with an unwelcome shock. It was drained of the reddish brown that once colored its walls, replaced with a coat of grey and dusty moss. Cracks littered its exterior, like wrinkles of worn paper. And what I’d mistaken for a shadow was instead a splash of charred bricks, cooked by soot and a great past fire. I could see where the flames once licked, their handprints in every corner of Marquina’s home.

But most disturbing were the boards of wood hammered across the windows and door, as if they were trying to prevent whatever lay inside from crawling its way out. Then I wondered if the fire had started from within instead, and shuddered.

“You took great care of the house, I see,” Andrés said, rather amused as he took the sight in.

I shot Sergio a glance that I hoped was accusing. There had been more to his story, important- no, crucial- details that he neglected to tell me.

“This is,” Sergio replied, “a surprise to me too. I haven’t been back here in…”

He trailed away, and sensing that there was no point in hiding more from us, said, “There was a fire here, in my youth. The book you left behind, it went up in flames.”

Andrés grinned, a flare of teeth. “Now, now, professor. The book was just an object, a means to an end. It wouldn’t dare act on its own- unless someone opened it. I’ll venture a guess- you couldn’t resist following in my footsteps?”

Sergio frowned, likely upset by the accusation. “I wanted to know what happened to you.”

“And it’s as I asked, did you like the answer?”

Sergio pursed his lips, a sharpness in his eyes, but he did not otherwise respond.

“Explain the rest of this to me,” Andrés said, waving a hand towards the wooden boards.

“I’ll venture a guess,” Sergio replied, throwing his brother’s words back, “I wasn’t… popular growing up. The people, especially the fathers of San Martín, had particular expectations for me.”

The source of his unpopularity was quite obvious, Martín. Sergio asked questions the powers that be did not like, and he dared to study what they could not answer. He would have been the village outcast even without the burden of Andrés’ legacy on his shoulders. But they had already seen what his brother could do, and it was not a matter of if Sergio would follow his path, but when. 

“So you were a pariah?” Andrés remarked, and through a laugh, said, “that’s one thing we have in common.”

Sergio, for his part, had no desire to play along with the joke-- perhaps in another lifetime, he would have rolled his eyes and reprimanded his brother’s tongue. 

“I’ll admit that the book had many uses for me at first,” Sergio told him, “but I was unable to take it out of the village. I can’t quite explain… but it refused to leave with me.”

He gestured at the boards. “I assume that’s what these are for. The church swept father’s home after I left, and discovered it lying within.”

Andrés was silent for a bit. Then he spoke. “There were no repercussions for you?”

Again, he was goading his brother and Sergio knew. But the professor had no choice but to answer.

“I don’t know. I was gone by then. But beforehand, they were hoping I would take father’s place- after his death, the cemetery was hard to control. The dead were harder to placate without him. So they granted me more tolerance than they would have liked.”

Sergio adjusted his sliding spectacles, the rain still beating down on his cloak. “But I had no intention of doing their dirty work.” 

Andrés regarded him with the slightest of impressed gazes. “You realize the church will punish you as soon as it can?”

“I do. But they’ll have to find me first.” Sergio met his gaze. “And I’ve always been good at hiding.”

“Yet you drove me here anyway? And here I thought you were intelligent, professor.”

Sergio’s voice was steely when he spoke next. “Driving you was my choice. And now I think it’s fair for you tell me why the fuck you decided to come back.”

Andrés walked ahead of him, until he stood before the boarded door. And knocking on wood, he said, “Isn’t it obvious, professor? To take back what’s mine.”

He turned his head, offering Sergio a cold sneer. “You still haven’t figured out why the book refused to leave? Because it belongs to me. All of this belongs to me- your shadows, your dealings-”

He laughed with a tilt, the sound not unlike scratchy coughs. “In fact, this house belongs to me. I don’t know what ‘fantasies’ you’ve concocted about me, Marquina, but to me, you’ve always been a bug in my way.”

I expected Sergio to stare at him the way you had, with that flare of anger and hurt. But instead, he looked at Andrés blankly, as if analyzing what lay behind each word. Andrés was too lost in his spew to notice. 

“What are you saying?” Sergio said roughly.

“I hated you, little brother. Whatever they told you about me here-- they were right. I tried to kill you the night I left, and unfortunately, I failed. It was embarrassing really- you were such a sickly babe.”

“Andrés, whatever you tried to do with me as a child- it’s hardly relevant now.”

Andrés laughed again, like sifting sand. “Oh, but it is! I’ve dreamt of this day for ages. That one day I could return here and say to you, ‘Papa is dead. And I can finally take back what’s rightfully mine.’”

Sergio grit his teeth, snapping out, “Then why didn’t you want me to come? I’m not an idiot.”

“Because it was a dream, nothing more. I can’t stand the sight of you, professor-- you not being here would have made this better.”

The professor drew a hard breath, then released. “Andrés, I know you’re angry with me. I made a mistake with the book, and for that, I apologize- but I can fix it. If you’ll help me.”

“Not a mistake.” Andrés stalked towards him then, jabbing a finger into his brother’s chest. “A transgression. Was it not enough that you stole my birthrights? My father? You had to dig your hands into my practice?”

Sergio stepped forward, making to grab Andrés by the arm. He was shoved back. 

“Andrés, tell me what you want. I won’t play games with you-”

“I want you gone. Go back to Toledo and never come back. I’ll collect what’s mine and we’ll part ways forever more.”

“No,” Sergio shot back, “I won’t-”

“You’ve already brought me here and paid for our deal- I have no more use for you. So get out of my sight!”

Andrés was loud, quite clear in his anger. But incensed, Sergio refused to back away. When I leapt from Andrés’ shoulder, Sergio drew himself to his full height, and glaring down at his elder brother, said, “Make me. Kill me like you wanted to. I won’t fight back.”

“What makes you think I won’t?” Andrés hissed.

“Then do it. Take out the knife and slit my throat.”

“I’m warning you, professor-”

Sergio grabbed his bandaged wrist, squeezing hard. “Surely you know how to kill a man. Cut me across the arm like you did yourself. Or-”

He yanked Andrés forward, pressing the hand in his grip to his own chest. “-Stab me through the heart, Andrés. Or perhaps under the armpit. There are many ways to kill a man. Are you familiar?”

Andrés laughed in his face, brittle. “What makes you think you’re worth the effort? I don’t waste time killing bugs.”

Sergio locked eyes with him, as if pondering what to do next. That was the moment I heard an abrupt call.

“Sergio Marquina!”

I looked to the source, and fast approaching, was a group of five, six men, priests I could honestly not recognize. The fathers of my youth had surely passed on then. By the look on their faces, I could tell the brothers’ return was an unpleasant shock.

Distracted, Sergio let Andrés go.

“Good luck, professor,” Andrés told him with another laugh. 

Leaving Sergio to deal with the holy men, Andrés ran to the door and kicked it open. Before Sergio could follow, he was swarmed by those men. And I slipped inside with Andrés before they noticed me as well.

~~o~~

“The door opened itself for you,” I told Andrés as we climbed towards the cellar, Marquina’s house all but drowned in dust and webs.

“Or perhaps my kick was too powerful?” he said.

“You’re as powerful as a fly right now,” I scoffed, “the shadows know you’re here. They let you in.”

“Yes, the prodigal son has returned.” He rammed his shoulder into the cellar door, again and again until it let up.

“Sergio didn’t believe a word you said,” I informed him, descending the stairs at his heels, “whatever you’re planning, he’ll find out.”

“It won’t matter. I’ll be done by then.”

There was a low tone to his last phrase, something that told me his plan could not be reversed. I think I knew all along what he intended-- I merely too afraid to admit it. We both knew that the shadows were growing tired of Andrés, that he was running out of life for them to feed upon. At Santa Catalina, the demons had asked for you, not him. And here, they were already preparing to move on. Should Andrés finally die, they would waste no time in finding their next target.

They had loved Andrés for his desperation, and they now loved Sergio for his ambition.

But Andrés loved Sergio more. And the professor would find out soon enough.

When he found the leather book under a pile of ash, Andrés picked it up and flicked through each page, every inch crumbling to the touch. The book was falling apart, singed at its corners and burnt by years of neglect.

“Is it so important that everyone hates you?” I asked him, “why all the lies, Andrés?”

He bit his thumb, teeth drawing blood. “It makes for a more dignified exit. I’d rather they laugh when I’m gone. Tears are too unseemly.”

He lowered his thumb, dripping blood into the book’s pages, and I’m unsure if it was a trick of the eye when the book began regaining its past lustre.

“And imagine, gatita, crying for a necromancer?” He shook his head, chuckling. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Then why didn’t you try sending me away?”

“I thought of it,” he answered honestly, “but it didn’t seem plausible. You’ve known me for too long, Tatiana. And I you- sometimes it’s as if you can read my thoughts.”

“You have thoughts?” I said.

We laughed then, however uncomfortably. I don’t know why we were so determined to smile in that moment, maybe because of some twisted notion that it would soften the blow of what was to come. Or maybe because I knew we would never laugh together again.

It’s not too late, I wanted to tell him, put down the book and leave with Sergio. 

Let the shadows fester here, let them move onto your brother, let them take Martín. They were terrible thoughts, I knew, selfish, rabid things I could only say to myself in the dark. I could have said he owed the village nothing, that they deserved their fate for everything they had done to us, to his mother, to his brother.

But Martín, Andrés always had a twisted view of the world. He did not believe he was saving the village, nor would he have wanted to do such a thing. But he felt as if the shadows had left their catacombs because of him, and that fate demanded he send them back. What’s more, I think, he would have done anything for his brother. That was a habit he had never shaken.

A great part of it was love. But there was a smaller part there, a deformed state of mind that told him his life was only worth as much as it could be used. Had you and I known earlier, Martín, perhaps we could have changed it before it became too late.

~~o~~

While Sergio argued with the village priests, there, I assume, to arrest him for bringing Andrés back, we snuck out the broken window and returned to the town streets. “On what grounds?” I heard Sergio say, and that was the extent I heard.

You would later tell me that you’d returned to the inn at dawn. You demanded the keepers tell you where we’d gone. And you’d purchased a horse for the sole purpose of following the brothers to their home.

You were never far behind, I learned. It was still pouring red by the time you arrived. And when it drizzled, you visited San Martín. Did you confess within? To a father willing to listen? Or did you kneel before the portrait of your namesake, his figure painted upon the chapel’s stained glass, and weep?

If anything, you would have grieved Matteo- perhaps you were asking that dead boy what to do then. Or were you thinking of your dead mentor and the words of wisdom he never said? Then you would have confessed to your greatest sin-- loving Andrés. But what you considered the greater sin, I knew, was wishing he did not love you back. It would make it easier to watch him burn.

He did not deserve saving, you knew, but you wanted nothing more. Perhaps you wished then to take his place in hell. It was selfish to demand he would watch you die instead, but if he lived on, it was well worth your twisted price.

But you were a man of science-- you knew wishful thinking had no place in your world. Your mind made up, you left the chapel then and began your search for Marquina’s home.

While you searched, Andrés and I found ourselves back in the cemetery where his mother had died. It opened for us as well, a maze of stones and grass beckoning the two of us back in. Sergio’s words were correct-- the cemetery had indeed changed without a groundskeeper to appease its writhing bones. The cemetery had always been old. But it appeared ancient to me then, each grave covered with dried petals and dark moss. 

I felt them under the dirt beneath my feet. Silent spirits begging for warmth, a human soul to drive away the lonely cold. I sympathized, really, for I remember what it was like to be dead. I remember the dull dread in my heart and the need to sob, every part of me forgotten and lost. 

The ghosts trapped beneath had felt it for years, some for centuries. It didn’t matter if their souls had gone to heaven or hell-- their ghosts were left behind in the wake of their deaths, remnants of whatever gripes they had with life. These soulless things could only sing their woes through blades of grass, their rotting skulls adorned with wilting flowers and thorns.

Marquina had stopped changing the flowers since he died, and Sergio had abandoned that duty the moment he left home. And there were not enough grieving men willing to take the Marquinas’ place, not with the graveyard’s rumored curse slipping through its very own cracks.

That must have been why the ghosts welcomed us so easily, as if the winds and wreaths were alive with song. The trees, taller still than I recalled, leered at us, crooked branches stretching through torn leaves. All together, they caged us in. The sun bled above, dipping down until it was no more. The rain had stopped.

And under that moonless sky, Andrés arrived at his mother’s tree. It towered over him, as it did back then, and it had grown thicker in the years we’d been gone, rougher, its roots twisting so far into the ground that the tree had become one with the soil and grass.

“I’ve come back,” Andrés said to the air.

He pulled out the book, then began ripping pages from within. “Leave him. It’s me you want.”

Andrés knelt then, laying the book down. He shrugged his coat off, and tucking it around his shoulders, began rolling up his right sleeve. I barely saw the glint of his knife.

Hot blood splashed upon the pages, spilling into eight even parts. The gauze, now soaked, lay in a useless scrap.

The shadows spoke to him, but I couldn’t hear. I sensed it, or rather, Naranjita did. I did not know what they said, but under my skin, I felt their answer: a resounding “no.”

“Are you so sure?” Andrés asked, the tip of his knife poking his chin.

A breeze whistled through, but whatever it said, only he could hear. Andrés threw his head back and laughed, voice cracking with the wind. He slipped the knife back into his belt, and standing, picked the book up. 

He watched its pages flutter, and said grimly, “Then you help me. Take what you will, when you will. And drive them away.”

Almost immediately, the book burst into flames. Shocked by the heat, Andrés dropped it, letting it land by his shoe, corners quickly burning to ash. He staggered then, stumbling onto one knee with a loud cry.

“Andrés!” I screamed, darting to his side.

I couldn’t see his face, only the black of his rippling coat and the orange cast of flickering flames. But when I wedged myself over his torso, I felt a clump of heat fall upon my head. It seeped into my fur, liquid. And the smell was unmistakable.

Blood.

With no small horror, my eyes found his right shoulder and trailed down, stopping at what remained of his forearm-- nothing. Only a stump in place of his elbow, smeared with rapidly gathering red. As if his arm had been pinched into smoke.

“Andrés,” I whispered, my mind suddenly numb, “no, no…”

Then he snickered, each laugh laced with obvious pain. Shaking, his left hand rubbed my brow, and near breathless, he said, “It’s- it’s all right, gatita- it’s nothing-”

He held back another cry of pain, releasing me to cradle his bleeding stump. I nuzzled him, unable to do much else. As the book burned on, he limped forward, each step heavier than the last until he tripped over a root.

Lying in the grass, his knees curled, the coat pooling around him like blood. And under it, his blood fed the earth, coloring grey soil a deep shade of wine.

“You didn’t say this would happen,” I hissed at him.

He picked himself up with a groan, and still holding the bleeding stump, dragged the rest of his body towards the source of that tree’s roots. He pressed his spine against the bark behind, and with shut eyes, allowed himself to slip down. Until he was sitting between the roots of his mother’s tree, skull against its trunk, and all else shielded by the wretched leaves above.

“I didn’t know either,” he told me, the end of each word barely sounding out, “but I’m not surprised.”

My mind again working, I knew what exactly he’d done. The cemetery’s shadows had refused to let his brother go. As he’d said, Andrés was no longer enticing enough a soul. He called on Santa Catalina’s demons then, to cast his former allies out. Their price was simple: the rest of his flesh, here and now.

 “I’m glad really,” he muttered, fingers tight against his torn elbow, blood eagerly spilling past his palm, “I didn’t… didn’t expect it to be this fast…”

Neither had I. Whatever Andrés had planned, I thought I’d be prepared for. But to see him destroyed at such a rate? I too had hoped he would receive his dignified death. And indeed, the shadows believed we asked for too much-- they were angry at Andrés’ betrayal, and as the book burned, they fought to burn what little of him remained.

“You son of a bitch,” I spat. “Idiot, idiot, idiot-”

I hopped onto his lap and buried my face into his stomach. His bones were sharp against me, a sign of too much weight lost between the years. I was grateful then, that Naranjita could not cry, for in my heart, I was already soaking his shirt with my tears.

His bloodied fingers raked through my head, carding the fur back and forth. And when I dared look up, I saw his lopsided smile, a spot of blood in the corner of his mouth.

His eyes were glistening in the dark. And as much as I wanted to scream at him again, the words died in my throat. Because his smile looked as it had back then, again reaching his eyes.

I hated what I remembered then, Martín. I thought back, against all reason, to a Christmas we’d spent in the belltower. The church had been flooded with people, villagers come to pray and sing through the night. But that morning, as Uncle played his organ for the smiling priests, Andrés and I explored the empty belltower. He’d wanted to touch the great bells.

Of course, he could not climb so high, so we’d ended up hiding in the dome, giggling like mice in the dark. 

“I got you something, Andrés,” I’d told him, my voice echoing off the walls.

He’d looked at me as if I was mad. Señor Marquina, it seemed, had stopped celebrating the holidays since the death of his wife. Or perhaps the sight of Andrés had always been unwelcome to him on Christmas day. Thinking back, it was clear that he had never received a gift in his life. Then, my memory blurs. Andrés had given me something as well, but I couldn’t recall what- a ribbon? A comb? Perhaps a paintbrush he’d stolen from Father Fuentes?

I remember what I gave him, a cat I’d carved from a piece of soap. It was clumsy and resembled a dog much more. But I was proud of it. What I remember most clearly though, was the way Andrés had laughed.

It was as if the bells were tolling above. He held the figurine to his chest, cupping it between his hands as if it was the most precious thing in the world. He had been so happy, Martín, smiling like a flower in the sun. There was, for once, nothing naughty about his grin, nothing wicked in his laugh, nothing save a child’s humble joy.

“Thank you, Tatiana,” he’d told me and I knew he’d wanted to cry.

“Thank you Tatiana,” he said to me now, “for everything.”

When I next blinked, Andrés was choking on blood, again a man who would never laugh like that boy again. When he spat the offending red out, he said to me, “When I’m gone, find Martín. He’ll care for you-”

“Stop talking,” I growled, “I’d rather die than rely on Martín, and you’re not dead yet-”

“But soon,” he interrupted, pushing for breath. 

And looking upwards, he said in a daze, “I didn’t think I’d die here, the same place as her… don’t you find it poetic?”

“I think the blood loss is getting to you.” But I could not deny another shudder trickling through my spine, because I saw a woman swinging in the breeze above, her pale feet brushing the rustling leaves. No, she was only an image between the branches. There was no one there.

But I knew there was, however faint, if only because of the ring of moss I saw. It dangled like a noose, as if coaxing Andrés into taking its thread.

“I was too young to remember her,” he said, sliding further down the trunk, “But when my mother died… even until her last breath, she believed my father would love her... that he’d- he’d save her in the end.”

I pulled myself onto his chest, trying to block that noose from view, then put a paw to his brow. It was matted with sweat, and as I expected, burning with fever. Below, the roots were turning scarlet, nourished with his blood, itself still spilling in fresh heaps.

“I’m no different,” he confessed, “I thought that if I wanted it enough, my father would love me. That everyone would…”

I glared at the roots. De Fonollosa did not know what she was leaving behind. She did not know how much blood her son would shed and how little it would mean. And her ghost did not care how much blood those roots swallowed as he spoke. 

“But wanting isn’t enough. People like Mamá and I,” he went on, “learn too late because we thought we deserved too much.”

“What are you talking about, idiot!?” I cried, unable to stand more of his drivel, “you’re bleeding to death because you’re trying to save Sergio and his fucking village. If you’re as selfish as you think, you’re awful at proving it.”

He allowed a peal of raspy laughter, quite grating to my ears. I’d wanted to slash my claws across his lips. 

“Do you know why I loved Sergio so much?” he whispered, “I thought, because he was my brother, that he was supposed to love me back. That he had no choice but to.”

Then his hand came to stroke my nape. “And you, Tatiana- you were… far better to me than I was to you. I should have left you in peace, but I was too self-centered, too stubborn- never once did I think about anyone else.”

But did anyone ever think of you back then? I wished to retort. But I knew Andrés had become deaf to my scolding, trapped in his haze of pain and fever. He was spouting anything that came to his mind, then, things he had once been too proud- no, ashamed- to say. What could I say to him then?

He’d spent half a lifetime condemning the boy he once was. I could not expect him to absolve that boy with his dying breath. And still, I said-

“What child isn’t selfish? What child doesn’t want to be loved?” I pressed myself against his shoulder, nudging my head beneath his jaw. “Andrés, you’re the worst bastard I know. But what you did in the past- that isn’t evil. That’s called ‘being human.’”

He said nothing, erratic breaths heavy above. It’s true, Martín, at first I resented him greatly for what he’d done. But the truth is, I’m unsure what the source of my anger really was-- the fact that he failed to raise my own body from the dead, or the fact that I knew deep down, had the tables been turned, I would have done the same. That perhaps I was just as wicked as the two of you.

So when he asked me if I hated him, if ever had, I shook my head. I never regretted a moment spent in Naranjita’s shape. Something slipped down my cheek then. I licked at it, tasting wet salt. 

I thought I was weeping until another drop rolled down my brow. Andrés was crying, in spite of his silent grin. 

“I used to think we’d get married,” he told me, “I would become a master painter, you would replace your uncle at the organ, our wedding would be at the chapel. Singing monks. The whole village would attend.”

I once thought the same, I admit. And maybe in another life, it happened exactly as he described. And right now, that version of me was playing the piano for our children, Andrés grinning as he snuck kisses from behind. Would we have been happy? That, I don’t know. 

Happiness, I think, was something the three of us would never understand. But that day on the stairs of Toledo, I believe Andrés knew what it meant. When he looked upon your face in the rain. And I believed no one would ever replace you then.

“If we married,” I said, “we’d separate within the year. I can barely stand you as it is.”

His chest rumbled with a quiet chuckle. “Perhaps you’re right, gatita.”

We remained in silence for some moments more, not unlike the night we spent curled upon his grandfather’s stone. In place of the match was the crumbling book, its yellow fire quickly turning a shade of blue.

What next? I’d asked him. Andrés told me to wait for the toll of San Martín’s bells. Once midnight struck, he would move to the back of his mother’s tree. Santa Catalina’s shadows would take him then, and with his death, disappear. The rest of him, the cemetery would drag to hell. And by dawn, the necromancer would be no more.

~~o~~

Sergio was a brilliant man, far too clever for his own good. And Andrés had been betting on that fact. He knew his brother would not rest until he figured out where we’d gone. He had no doubt that the professor had some scheme to plot our escape. But returning to Toledo was not in Andrés’ future. 

And that was the fatal factor to Sergio’s plan.

That was, I think, the point where your path converged with his. As you asked the ever anxious villagers if they knew where Marquina lived, your mind replayed the images of San Martín. You thought of the painted windows and their proud saint. But you were not thinking of the mural’s beauty, no, you were thinking of how its light refracts.

Like the elements of your work, the light bends for the mortal eye, sometimes to a different shape entirely. But the essential source remains the same. You linked it to the eternal soul and your abandoned quest for its preservation. A more pious man would have called it a divine revelation.

You called it a plan so mad that it might work.

Perhaps you hadn’t yet connected it to the wretched book, but you knew there was a source to the shadows, a source that had bound itself to Andrés. You would find it then, and filter something else through, something that could pass itself for the immortal soul. So enticing that you could trick them into relinquishing him, and then, you would destroy that vessel before it could see what you’d done.

What had you planned to use? Your eye, you’d said, the window to the soul, enough perhaps to trick those demons into thinking they’d found the real thing. You were fully intent on clawing your eye out, even both if needed, to carry out this mad scheme. 

You told me of this plan often in the coming years, never without a taste of regret. The fatal factor to your plan was speed. You were simply a step too late.

You missed Andrés by not even a minute’s time. We’d slipped out seconds before you stumbled upon Sergio and the priests. When they took the professor away, you followed. I have no doubt that he had his own means of escape, but your arrival certainly made it easier. Sergio would later tell me that you found him behind the bars of a catacomb cell. You’d taken great cares to sneak in and you hoped to leave the very same way. Sergio, however, showed you a tunnel of bones that led back out.

It was a tunnel he’d started digging as a child, whenever he was not studying with the priests of San Martín. You found it ridiculous, but he’d earned your grudging respect. You helped him through that path and by the time you two made it out, Andrés had long since made his final deal.

When Sergio’s captors discovered him missing, they lit their torches and took to searching the maze of woods nearby. You, perhaps knowing that Andrés would have done the same, told Sergio to go on, and took it upon yourself to draw them away. 

While you led them on that wild chase, midnight struck against San Martín’s bells.

~~o~~

Andrés shoved himself along the trunk, leaving a handprint of blood with every push. By then, there was no color left in his cheeks save the blood dripping down his chin. When his coat hit the ground, he reached the back of his mother’s tree.

I looked to the book first, pages disintegrating before my eyes, then to where Andrés stood. The tree, it seemed, had grown within hours, its scarred bark opening into a hollow of black. From within, branches gnarled out, sharp and clawlike as their limbs cracked and cracked.

The roots moved, sliding upwards in great coils, as if spurred by the stench of Andrés’ blood. Misshapen branches curled around him, wrists of leaves and wooden nails. Brambles broke from shifting mulch, berries stained red as they reached for incoming prey.

Andrés came to stand at the edge of that hollow, an eternity of abyss ahead. He steadied himself, perhaps taking the time to feel the breeze on his face. He allowed the air to wash his lungs, dry and cold, and even the pain, he took a final moment to cherish.

Why you? I’d asked him through a straining voice. Let’s turn back. 

Why not? Had been the bastard’s reply. Goodbye, Tatiana.

He turned, until I could see his face. He carried a smile, the same teasing smirk I knew so well. But he didn’t mean to taunt me then. It was a farewell-- an apology for the lifetime we had shared.

“Andrés-” I tried to cry.

But he shut his eyes, and allowed himself to fall back. The hollow caught him, branches closing around his limbs, the trunk’s very wood coming to crush him from behind. I watched a root wind itself around his mouth, twisting until it’d muted all sound.  

Should I spare you the details of what happened next? He would have preferred you not to know. But I know you, Martín. You would never coddle yourself when it came to him-- you’d wish to know every last bit.

After the tree had bound him back, they tore into him. Thorns carved through fabric and into skin, digging until flesh burst into blood. Wooden claws closed around his throat, his limbs, his chest. I wished to look away, but I refused, if only to spite the demons come to collect their pay.

As the branches cracked, I heard the crunch of a rib. Then two, then three. Until the cage around his heart had been crushed like twigs. I saw more roots join in the carnage, the shadow of hands pulling and prying at his form, burning every part they touched, as if each shadow was eager for its share of blood.

And there was blood, Martín, more from one man than I thought possible. The thorns raked him from head to toe. And the branches continued to wind and curve, smashing through bone and skin as brambles and roots worked from below. The hollow was soon filled with blood, a deep crimson that streamed through the cracks of bark, dying tips of dried leaves red. It smeared the grass below his limp feet, bled into the dirt beneath, and splattered the tree with red.

The more he bled, the more eager those shadows were to flay what remained. I was sickened to the stomach, but I refused to retch. And as much as I wished to tear at those thirsty roots, I knew my claws would make no difference. All Andrés wanted was that I watched him pass with some semblance of dignity.

Between the thorns and wood, I could make out the shape of ripped clothing and flesh. Once fine fabric hung in shreds. Wounds covered skin, too deep to scar or mend, slivers of white bone behind running blood. Not even a corpse of him would remain.

“Andrés!”

At that voice, it all stopped. I started, twisting on my heels to see who’d arrived. Out of breath, Sergio trudged over a branch, stumbling to his knees before our gory sight.

His spectacles sat askew, face littered with cuts and dirt, the most disheveled I’d seen him yet. But he had no eyes for me, only the sight of his brother hanging within the bloodied hollow.

“Andrés,” he said again, as if the name could dispel that sight, “Andrés-”

Terror blanched him, but Sergio stood firm. I wholly believe he would have stormed towards the hollow and pried Andrés out with his bare hands. But the roots and branches chose to release his brother then.

They’d already fed on him for all he was worth. What little scraps of life he had left were hardly anything now. But if he could cling on for even a moment longer, their feast would resume. You see, the will to live was what they found most enticing of all.

To prolong his torment and its taste, they would allow respite. So Andrés fell, dropping like a rag doll into Sergio’s arms, the professor looking upon his wounds with what I could only describe as utmost horror.

Instinctively, Sergio set him on the ground, and rubbing his bloodied brow, said, “Andrés, stay with me, please- please-”

He tore off his sleeve, roping it into a tourniquet around the stump of Andrés’ arm. “Damn it, what were you thinking- you’ll be all right, you’ll-”

I came to Sergio’s side, just as Andrés flickered back to consciousness with a whispered, “Sergio-”

It was the first time he’d addressed the professor by his name. Sergio froze, bending to meet his brother’s gaze. I could sense his relief, buried deep under the panic and rage.

“Place- your hand behind my waist,” Andrés managed to wheeze out, eyelids heavy as they struggled to rise.

His voice was hoarse, little louder than the twilight breeze, choked by pain and the furrows of soot around his throat.

And when Sergio obeyed, he found the necromancer’s knife. Slowly, he pulled it out, and prepared to stand, perhaps ready to smash the blade through that tree.

“Stay,” Andrés ordered, and left arm shaking as it rose, brought his hand to the wound over his chest, “kill me.”

Sergio gaped, staring at Andrés as if he’d lost his mind. 

“You have to kill me, Sergio,” his brother said, blood welling within his mouth, “take the knife to- San Martín. Tell them you killed me. The shadows will- disappear.”

Andrés raised his remaining hand, cupping his palm behind Sergio’s head. “You’ll be a hero… clear your name.”

Sergio shook his head. “No! No, that’s insane- please, Andrés-”

He clenched his teeth, every muscle fighting to hold back unshed tears. Sergio was a clever man. He knew the logic in Andrés’ words. He knew his brother to be right. But logic had no place for Sergio then.

“Andrés, no,” he said, “I won’t let you, not again-”

By then, Andrés’ hand had made its way to the back of Sergio’s neck. He pulled his brother downwards, closer. And I saw the knife come dangerously near.

“I never hated you,” Andrés muttered.

Sergio’s spectacles fell, cracking against the dirt. I heard steel enter flesh.

~~o~~

Andrés hugged him tight, Sergio’s head resting against the crook of his neck, eyes wide in shock. 

“I love you very much, hermanito,” Andrés whispered into his brother’s ear, “don’t forget it.”

~~o~~

Sergio looked at his hands, then to the dagger lodged within Andrés’ chest. I didn’t hear what he said next. I only knew that Sergio broke before my eyes. He placed his hands around the blade, trying and failing to stem the spilled blood. But it hardly mattered. 

Andrés was barely breathing by then, too wounded to speak, having shed too much blood to move. He lay at death’s door, the earth soaked in his blood, the last of it enough to seal the necromancer’s final deal.

I doubt he could hear Sergio’s sobs or feel his tears. He only lay limp as Sergio cradled his head. Numb, I wanted to think of him at his worst. I wanted to remember the man who’d slit another’s throat for barely a reason at all. I wanted to remember the ugliest things he’d said and done. I wanted to remember how many he’d crushed beneath his shoe, how many times he’d laughed while others screamed.

But then, I could only remember his face as he stroked my chin, a loving “gatita” on his tongue. I remembered the way he’d brushed my fur. I remembered the silk ribbon he’d tied into a bow around my neck.

I remembered him grabbing me by the hand, a devil-may-care grin as he led me up the chapel stairs. I remembered the false apples he’d painted and how he’d laughed. I remembered sharing a blanket with him in winter by Sergio’s cradle. I remembered the sweets we’d stolen, the taste of chocolate on my tongue, and the smudge of sugar on his lips.

I remembered the boy I loved. 

Naranjita could not cry. Tatiana could. I wept then, a flake of dust having found its way into my eye, sharp and stinging. It did not rain when Andrés died, Martín-- it snowed.

Soft petals of ice drifted from the sky, tinged with pink as soon as they landed on the stained ground. Frozen blood that dusted Andrés’ face and the church beyond.

When Sergio looked up, his face streaked with salt and hair peppered with snow, he saw you standing above the burnt book. It was no more than a pile of fire by then, and the light from its flames shaped your features into a face not unlike a portrait upon stained glass.

You didn’t speak, perhaps because you couldn’t.

You were holding a hand to your shoulder, no small amount of blood slipping from the gash underneath. From the scuffle with your pursuers, you’d said. But you’d gotten away in the end. But not fast enough, a moment late.

Your eyes, Martín, were the color of thawed ice, warmed by grief.

You limped towards us, breaths harsh as you knelt by where Andrés lay, his broken body drenched with red. You hovered above him, lips trembling in the cold. You blinked, tears slipping down the bridge of your nose, to the tip and onto his face. And the sight of him then, so lifeless and bloodied, convinced you what you saw was true. 

You pried the blade from his chest. It sank into the snow.

“Let him go,” you said to Sergio, tongue curling into a hoarse snarl. 

When he refused, you pushed him away. As for Andrés, you pulled him into your arms. You held him tight, head buried in his broken collar, and rocking back and forth, you wept. You choked on your sobs, your shirt soon stained with his blood. You let it color your skin, your tears, your hands. 

You’d wanted to save him, and more than any of us, you believed you could. A long time ago, I would have said-- You know how this story ends, Martín-- don’t pretend otherwise. Don’t pretend you can change it. You can’t save him. No one can.

But as he drew his last breath in your embrace, the beginning of a smile on his pale lips, I think he- for at least that moment- believed himself worth saving, worth loving. He died listening to the rhythm of your thumping heart. It beat behind your ribs, rapid as it made up for years of movement lost, and the sensation was too much.

It beat for you once when you fell in love. And it beats for you now when you felt yourself shattered in two.

And still, you held him through the night, clinging to his body as you shielded him from the snow. I watched frost turn pink and ice bleed red. 

When the bell next rang, a ghostly hum in the frigid air, I believe it tolled for him.

~~o~~

Sergio and I huddled together through the night, not far behind from where you sat, Andrés limp in your arms. We listened to your sobs and curses, and when dawn finally came, you were rendered mute with grief.

I admit, even after the hours passed, I could not believe Andrés was gone. His corpse lay torn asunder but I could not help but think he would wake and smile his crooked grin. Perhaps you did as well. But Sergio understood clearest of all that his brother was dead.

And in that moment, I knew every body he’d raised had crumbled as well. No trace of the necromancer would remain. I thought then, that it would not be so bad to disappear along, if only because it would be better than feeling this grief.

Dread, sorrow, anger-- I had been used to it all. Grief, I realize, was something that I had never quite understood. Now I did.

And, Martín, I would have done anything to wish it away. But I remained in Sergio’s arms, blinking at the morning sky, flakes of white mingling with red snow.

“Tatiana,” the professor said, his voice breaking with the dawn, “look-”

The hollow of the wretched tree had closed. Its wood remained stained with dried blood, but what startled me was the sight of roses blooming from between the bark. They were popping along the roots, full blossoms of dark red, all the more striking in the snow.

My eyes followed the path they took, each rose growing in the direction of Andrés’ blood. Until I saw you staring upon your hands, mouth agape. Roses sat on your palms. You looked down, where they now bloomed from Andrés’ shattered ribs, no doubt a mockery of the beauty he’d chased in life.

Sergio wrapped his hand around the handle of the fallen knife, tears spilling anew.

You blinked, staring upwards as if seeing the sky and snow for the very first time. Then, from his chest, you plucked a single rose. And laying Andrés gently to the ground, you touched a kiss to his frozen lips. It was the first and last time your mouth met his.

Then you glanced at me, finally making sense of what occurred. He was dead and there was no bringing him back. But you were determined to give him what he wanted-- the burial he’d once wished for.

You dug your hands into the remnants of his burning book, not caring for how they scorched your wrists. The fire, you carried in your hands, and again bending over Andrés, you dropped the flames. 

We cremated him along with the ashes of the leather book. When the fire turned to smoke, there was nothing left but singed roses and charred bones. Sergio scooped up a handful of ash, and I could not tell the difference between ash and snow.

Later, you told me you could not let his remains stay in that cemetery, not after all the pain it’d caused him in birth and life. And so, you gathered his bones, held them to your weeping heart, and started limping away.

You told Sergio to do what his brother said. And it would be for the best if he parted ways with you. I left with you, not because Andrés wanted me to, but because my gut told me you needed me more. Sergio still had Toledo.

You had nothing but a ghost’s scorched bones.

As for Andrés, you told him, “I love you.”  A final hymn.

~~o~~ 

Once upon a time, there was a wicked boy who became a wicked man. His name was Andrés, and he was born from a witch’s womb. Andrés was a naughty boy who envied all things good. So great was his envy that the Devil looked to him and said, ‘what a lovely boy.’

The Devil sent him a gift. A little black book that fed on blood. The book told him to find a good little child. So he did.

With a red apple, Andrés lured a girl with red locks to his home. He killed her and stole her bones. He gave them to the Devil and the Devil was most pleased. Then the book told him to find a good little babe. So he did.

Andrés stole his baby brother from his crib. The babe’s name was Sergio and he was as good as Andrés was bad. When he cried, their father came running. Their father knew what Andrés had done, and the good people of the village chased Andrés away. They saved the babe and told the Devil’s servant to never return.

And Andrés laughed, for he found these people very dumb. When he ran, the sky rained red. They say Andrés dug up a dead cat next. It was the Devil’s gift as well.The cat told Andrés where to go next.

He went town to town to spread his wicked ways. Andrés lied and cheated and shed much blood. He made friends with ghosts and demons and the like. He loved plagues and murders and unvirtuous things. He despised goodwill and all things pious. 

They say Andrés met a madman next. The alchemist of Palermo was a most terrible man, and he too loved the Devil’s song. He turned children’s bones to gold and melted their blood to lead. And the Devil told him to follow Andrés. They left together when the Devil summoned them next. 

Keep your dead buried deep, they say. Or else Andrés will find them and make them his. Servants from corpses that suffered by the hour and day. 

But such evil came at a price. When Andrés again lured a youth to death, he tried to escape to his Master’s side. And when he ran, the alchemist showed his cowardly ways. He parted from Andrés and disappeared.

Now a most virtuous man, Sergio found where Andrés hid. He burnt the Devil’s black book and drove a dagger through the wicked man’s heart. Andrés met a most gruesome end, as did his companions and their terrible ways. 

The Devil lost and returned beneath. Roses sprung from the earth in joy. Then the people made merry and rejoiced.

-- The Necromancer’s Ode

~~o~~

Are you still listening? Not Martín, you- my friend, who allowed me to say so much. You must know of the Necromancer’s Ode. It’s quite popular, I know, a tale parents tell children at night. Be good, they’d say, or the necromancer will take you away!

Ah, the necromancer would have laughed if he knew. Do you believe that fable over my words? I won’t force you to choose. Memory is, after all, a fickle thing. The necromancer is no more than a story now, words ghosting from mouth to mouth. I know of a rhyme where he carved out his lover’s heart, a song where he killed his father with a poisoned rose, a ballad where he served a witch.

Andrés can’t dispute these tales. He’s been gone for so long. And what right have I to refute them in his place? 

What happened in the end? I wish I could say Sergio cleared his brother’s name. And he did try, my friend. But he was only one man after all, powerless despite his brain. 

So Sergio did as he was told. He marched to the entrance of San Martín, and on his knees, he roared, “He’s dead! He’s dead! I slaughtered him with my hand!”  

He held the bloodied dagger in his hands, up towards the sculpted saints. And before them, he sobbed until he choked on breath. Sergio stayed kneeling for hours, perhaps days, unwilling to budge or relinquish that knife. For three, four days, I’m told, Sergio remained on the marble steps, shedding as many tears as his brother had blood. 

And as Andrés said, Marquina’s name was cleared. He returned to Toledo then. Martín followed, but he did not stay.

There, Martín made his elixir. He dipped Andrés’ bones in gold and melted that mix into a fine silver. He told me the bones had been burnt with hellfire, scarred the same way as his hands. When they reacted with gold, he purged them of shadow and replaced it with light.

Perhaps with this potion, he could have brought Matteo back. There was nothing left of Andrés but there was still a corpse in Matteo’s place. But Martín never returned to Palermo.

Instead, he gave his work to Murillo. Martín had learned by then that the dead could never come back. Yet there had always been a thread for the living, however thin, however faint. For Raquel’s sake, I hope she never had to use his elixir-- “in case,” Martín had said, if anyone at her school felt their spirit ill again, a drop would be enough to restore it to the way it’d been.

Martín settled in a quiet city, perhaps because he could no longer stand the noise of life. And always, he kept a rose from Andrés pinned above his heart. His beating heart, I think, he never quite adapted to. Often, he’d be awakened by its thumps at night, plagued with dreams of a man who would never return. 

He spent most of his time in his work, melting lead to gold and collecting metal for his study. He smoked when he could and drank with some abandon. When Sergio wrote, Martín would read the letters, then rip them up.

From what I gathered, Sergio did not want his brother to die in vain. If anything, the circumstances only made him more determined to pursue his schemes, schemes that Martín had no desire to look upon.

If not for me, Martín would have wasted away in his home. I urged him to eat, I tried to make him laugh, I forced him to live. I knew Andrés would not have wanted me to tell him many things. He certainly would never have wanted Martín to know what really happened at Santa Catalina.

But I was also a selfish thing. If Sergio and I had to live with the burden of knowing, then Martín had to as well. 

One night, I told him everything. I told him that if he died, Andrés’ death would have been for nothing. And however reluctant, Martín took my words to heart. In the morning, he wrote back to Sergio. And to this day, they write. 

But Martín still refused to visit Toledo. He told me he had no desire to see the professor and his wife, a family that filled him with burning envy. Martín took many lovers over the years, but there was always a distance between he and them, a gap that they could not replace. From time to time, he prattled on about the lover and beloved, a philosophy where the lover adored and the beloved accepted. And always, I felt that Martín was the beloved of those poor wretches.

Martín never faulted anyone else, you see. In his life, there had only ever been one beloved, a man whose lips he only graced once. And to that man, Martín had been the beloved as well. No, Martín could not forget Andrés, not in this lifetime at the very least. And it was just as well, for Martín now lived for two men, himself and the phantom of the man he loved. 

As for me, I finally felt Naranjita’s age. She’d already lived longer than any cat should. Andrés had bound my soul to his, not hers. Even should he die, Naranjita would live. But she would live as any cat would.

I felt the weight of her bones then, the years in her limbs, the slow push of her lungs. Soon, I knew, we would sleep and never awake.

So I said to Martín, “Take me home.”

Martín hated our village more than Andrés ever had. But he did not argue with me then. 

We returned to the cemetery first. Under the tree where Andrés’ roses bloomed, where his mother had died, Martín gathered a handful of flowers. In the shape of a bouquet, he placed them atop the grave of Andrés’ grandfather. The remaining rose, he slipped under the collar of his shirt. He pressed it to his chest, crushing the petals to his skin.

And now we sit in the grand chapel of San Martín. He rests beside me, his hands on his lap, stained with gentle scars. Martín kisses those scars often, cherishes them as he would any reminder of Andrés. His namesake looms over us, painted upon the great stained glass. The murals of my childhood glisten in the morning light, warm as fire and as cool as snow. 

I once said this was a world where hellfire touched heaven’s light. I feel the same way I did then.

Have I told you the tale of Saint Martín? When he arrived at our village, there was a sinner chained to the stocks outside. Saint Martín took pity on him and ordered the man freed. This man was so grateful that he renounced his sins. From then on, he devoted himself to Saint Martín and together, they built this church, stone by stone. I doubt much of it is true. The church was clearly built by a mason who knew his craft. But I don’t doubt that there was some semblance of truth. But perhaps it had been the other way around. Perhaps Saint Martín had been the man in the stocks. Or perhaps he had loved his sinner so much that he built this church upon his death. 

This part, I believe, if only because of the man sitting next to me. Martín is not a religious man. But as the light washes down, cascades of sun from the world outside, he looks up. His hands clasp over the rose, and perhaps- for the first time in his life- he prays.

And I hear the organ sing. My uncle is long dead. But a man sits in his place now, fingers gracing over organ keys. I hear his song echo into the air. My friend, listen. 

Follow the sound of the organ’s pipes. It floats over our heads, past the grey at Martín’s temple and the blue of his pained eyes. Let it take you away from these pews, up the altar, through the sculptures of marble saints.

Follow the spiral of martyrs up, past gold lining, mosaic glass, to the ceiling where a string of light hangs down.

It may be Naranjita’s failing vision, perhaps a trick of light, but the image blurs for me here. I see him, Andrés. The very last remnant of a soul long gone, a ghost frozen in time.

A boy suspended in the air. Ropes around his waist. A brush in his hand. He paints the faces of sculptures in prayer. He paints there, basked in sunlight, not a care in the world in his sliding grin. The crooked smile of a child untouched, unharmed. If I blink, he might disappear, so I keep my eyes trained up.

Can you see him too, my friend? Can you, Martín? Perhaps. Perhaps.

I’ll sleep for now as Naranjita purs. And when I wake, I hope to see Andrés painting still. Perhaps I’ll even hear the funeral mass. Dies Irae, my hated song. But there is one part I keep close. Now I sing it with my last breath:

“Qui Mariam absolvisti,

Et latronem exaudisti,

Mihi quoque spem dedisti//

Through the sinful woman shriven,

Through the dying thief forgiven,

Thou to me a hope hast given.”